The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 2, February, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 2, February, 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
Comte closes the Hierarchy of the Positive Sciences by adding to the
three which we have denominated _Exact_ Sciences, Chemistry, Biology,
Sociology, and _La Morale_, in the order in which they are named, as
indicated by the nature of the Phenomena with which they are concerned.
If we adopt this arrangement, and annex to each of these _general_
Sciences, as they are called in the language of Positivism, its derived
or dependent branches, we shall have the following order: Chemistry;
Geology; Biology, including Botany, Human and Comparative Anatomy, and
Physiology; Zoology; Sociology; and _La Morale_. Although this enlarged
scale is defective, many important departments, such as Ethnology,
Philology, etc., being left out, it is sufficiently correct to show the
complex nature of the Phenomena with which History must concern itself.
History--in its largest aspect, that in which we are now considering
it--is the record of the progress of the Race in all its various modes
of development. In it is therefore involved the examination and
consideration of all the agencies, Material or Spiritual, which have
operated on Mankind through past ages. Mathematical questions concerning
Number, Form, and Force; Astronomical problems on the relation of our
Earth to other Celestial bodies, and the effect thereof on Climate,
Soil, and Modes of Life; Physical inquiries into the influence of Heat,
Electricity, etc., on individuals and nations; Chemical investigations
into the nature of different kinds of Food, and their relations to the
animal economy, and hence to the career of Peoples; Geological
researches to discover the origin of the human Race, and its position in
the Animal Kingdom; questions of Physiology, of Social Life, of
Ethnology, of Metaphysics, of Religion; every problem, in fine, which
the world has been called to consider, forms a part of the record of its
progress and comes within the scope of History. As the Descriptology, or
verbal daguerreotyping of the Continuity of Society, and hence of the
Dynamical aspect of Concrete Sociology, History stands, then, in a
sense, at the head of the scale, omitting Theology, the true apex of the
pyramid of Sciences, which pyramid Comte has decapitated of this very
apex.
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